Greencrow Creative Resources

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Thought Cleansing Project Being Orchestrated by Google

Internet Censorship - Google is cleansing

the Internet of Alternative

sources of information and news

According to this article in the UNZ review, Google has been orchestrating a massive "thought cleansing" censorship program over the past several months. This blogger has noticed along with many of my colleagues a dramatic variation in the number of "hits" on our blogs. Checking my Greencrow As The Crow Flies [GATCF] stats regularly and reviewing in particular my all time stats of readership since 2013, when I began to blog full time, I see this:

Now what did GATCF Dooooooo to cause such a

dramatic drop in readership?

In Other Words, Why Did I Fling

Myself off that Statistical Cliff?????!!!!

Well, I'm certainly not going to ask the behemoth algorithm all-seeing eye in the sky, Google, what went wrong way back in early 2016! Please read the following article from the UNZ review and I will have more thoughts in comments to follow:

Google’s New Search Protocol Is Restricting Access to 13 Leading Socialist, Progressive and Anti-War Web Sites

New data compiled by the World Socialist Web Site, with the assistance of other Internet-based news outlets and search technology experts, proves that a massive loss of readership observed by socialist, anti-war and progressive web sites over the past three months has been caused by a cumulative 45 percent decrease in traffic from Google searches.

The drop followed the implementation of changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement issued on April 25, Ben Gomes, the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”

The World Socialist Web Site has obtained statistical data from SEMrush estimating the decline of traffic generated by Google searches for 13 sites with substantial readerships. The results are as follows:

Of the 13 web sites on the list, the World Socialist Web Site has been the most heavily affected. Its traffic from Google searches has fallen by two thirds.

The new statistics demonstrate that the WSWS is a central target of Google’s censorship campaign. In the twelve months preceding the implementation of the new Google protocols, the WSWS had experienced a substantial increase in readership. A significant component of this increase was the product of Google search results. The rapid rise in search traffic reflected the well-documented growth in popular interest in socialist politics during 2016. The rate of growth accelerated following the November election, which led to large protests against the election of Trump.

Search traffic to the WSWS peaked in April 2017, precisely at the point when Google began the implementation of its censorship protocols.

Another site affected by Google’s action has provided information that confirms the findings of the WSWS.

“In late May, changes to Google’s algorithm negatively impacted the volume of traffic to the Common Dreams website from organic Google searches,” said Aaron Kaufman, director of development at progressive news outlet Common Dreams. “Since May, traffic from Google Search as a percentage of total traffic to the Common Dreams website has decreased nearly 50 percent.”

The extent and impact of Google’s actions prove that a combination of techniques is being employed to block access to targeted sites. These involve the direct flagging and blackballing of the WSWS and the other 12 sites listed above by Google evaluators. These sites are assigned a highly negative rating that assures that their articles will be either demoted or entirely bypassed. In addition, new programming technology teaches the computers to think like the evaluators, that is, to emulate their preferences and prejudices.

Finally, the precision of this operation strongly suggests that there is an additional range of exclusion techniques involving the selection of terms, words, phrases and topics that are associated with socialist and left-wing websites.

This would explain why the World Socialist Web Site, which focuses on issues such as war, geopolitics, social inequality and working class struggles has experienced such a dramatic fall in Google-generated searches on these very topics. We have seen that the very terms and phrases that would under normal circumstances be most likely to generate the highest level of hits—such as “socialism,” “Marxism” and “Trotskyism”—produce the lowest results.

This is an ongoing process in which one can expect that Google evaluators are continuously adding suspect terms to make their algorithm ever more precise, with the eventual goal of eliminating traffic to the WSWS and other targeted sites.

The information that has been gathered and published by the WSWS during the past week exposes that Google is at the center of a corporate-state conspiracy to drastically curtail democratic rights. The attack on free speech and uncensored access to information is aimed at crippling popular opposition to social inequality, war and authoritarianism.

The central and sinister role of Google in this process demonstrates that freedom of speech and thought is incompatible with corporate control of the Internet.

As we continue our exposure of Google’s assault on democratic rights, we demand that it immediately and unequivocally halt and revoke its censorship program.

It is critical that a coordinated campaign be organized within the United States and internationally against Google’s censorship of the Internet. We intend to do everything in our power to develop and contribute to a counter-offensive against its efforts to suppress freedom of speech and thought.

The fight against corporate-state censorship of the Internet is central to the defense of democratic rights, and there must be a broad-based collaboration among socialist, left and progressive websites to alert the public and the widest sections of the working class."

Folks, this was bound to happen. Orwell predicted it.... and it is the way the world rumbles and has throughout history. It can be summed up in the age-old maxim:

"POWER CORRUPTS AND ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY!"**In Fact, Google is stealing statistical numbers from me...the fruit of my blogging labour...just like in the story linked to above...where the Sherriff's deputy is stealing the farmer's hay...while in police uniform.
One other thing we know about power....once an entity has it...they NEVER willingly relinquish it. No...the only solution to the gradual but steady and relentless elimination of free speech on the Internet and the cleansing of thought is to find another outlet. I suggested in a post a month or so ago that RT and/or PressTV should get into the Internet Platform business...that is if they want to prevent the total elimination of their market in the West [as the West becomes more and more brainwashed]. Of course, eventually, RT and/or other Internet news sources, once they become powerful will eventually ALSO become corrupted. But that's "human" nature....just as it is also human nature to gravitate towards truth and to demand to be able to express it and have it promulgated to the masses.Or, will humanity have to return to the age old method of distribution of truth...sneaking out at night and nailing pamphlets and/or hand written diatribes to poles in the town square?

9 comments:

Crow... My stats over at NTS have also fallen like a stone over the last 6 months.. From a high of well over 100000 readers a month to barely 30000 a month right now! Is this Google "censoring" my readership and destroying my numbers? Absolutely!!!!

Thanks for verifying that this is absolutely what's happening, NTS. And it's happening brazenly and right out in the open. They don't even care anymore because they are SO terrified of the truth. Hasn't history taught them that the more they try to cover up the truth...the more it will seep up through the floorboards?

I have not been following the events in Virginia...deliberately so...because IMO it's another mass frenzy "contemplation of navel" event. The US killed more than 10 civilians in Afghanistan with an air strike yesterday and no body is rioting in the streets....as they should and would be in a functioning democracy.

Extreme weather patterns...colder and warmer than normal are indicative, IMO, of weather manipulation. Until the PTB admit to weather modification, manipulation and weaponization of weather...there can be no intelligent discussion of the issue.

Yah, my visits are down also- they were moving up, up,up and then they went down, down, down, in a manner that made no sense at allSome of it began when I started truth telling about the Kurds, but then it accelerated from that.

You, I and NTS have been sharing for a while our concerns that Blogger stats are being manipulated by Google. It comes as no surprise to me then that this phenomenon is Alternative media-wide. What is amazing is how open and "in our faces" it is.

They don't even try to be ethical anymore. It is a sign of desperation and that we are winning. Short of shutting down the Internet completely with an EMP (which is not out of the question) there is nothing they can do to stop humanity from gravitating towards the truth...as we are hardwired as a species to do.

Hi,could you forward to NorthernHe banned the anonymous button so I do not send him thoughts no moreThis shows the right wing being taunted for over five minutes before responding back to start the kaos.It was the blacks with baseball bats then,well watchthanks

View from the Crow's Nest

What happened to Kennedy is nearly what happened to me. America is in danger of upheavals. But you'll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They'll do everything to stifle the scandal. They will throw Noah's cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don't want to know. They don't want to find out. They won't allow themselves to find out."

~ French president after returning to Paris from JFK's funeral on November 24th, 1963

- Charles de Gaulle

“If NWO agents cannot use reason to make a point, then they are right: I am their enemy.” Vladimir Putin

"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed." JFK

Our rights will not fall due to limitations nor will they be abolished by unjust rule. Ali Badwan re Palestine

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'.....the truth is that Western corporate so-called news media are simply this: one giant troll army marching in lockstep with the political agenda of Washington and its coterie of Western allies.' Finian Cunningham...

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” – George Orwell

"Those who stand up for justice will always be on the right side of history." Copied from a protest sign seen at a demonstration in Palestine.

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"Authentic journalism is journalism that tells the people something the government doesn't want them to know." --Gary Webb (1955 – 2004)

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Anyone who relies on the Western media lives inside The Matrix. - Paul Craig Roberts

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Greencrow is an Internet identity and avatar I chose in 2003... when I first started going on news forums. I first used it on The New York Times forums (was kicked off that forum for insisting 9/11 was an inside job--since reinstated) but have used it on many other forums such as YouTube, CBC, Rabble.ca (kicked off that one) Rigorous Intuition (kicked off that one too) and a few more I can't think of at the moment.

In any case, Blogs are supposed to be fun and I hope this one is for me and my readers. gc

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NOTE: While I recommend the blogs listed below, it doesn't mean I agree with everything in them...just that they get me thinking : )